Brazilians will return to the polls next week less than a month after voters elected a record number of women as mayors, but gender equality is still a distant goal in a political culture long dominated by men.

Only one female candidate will participate in the 50-city mayor run-offs on 28 October, which means Brazil will continue to lag behind most other Latin American states in terms of the gender balance among elected officials.

The results prompted a commentator from the Hoje media group to declare "women were the major victors in this election", a conclusion echoed by several domestic newspapers. Candidates, however, remained more cautious.

"We are living a very important moment in Brazilian democracy, with the growth of female participation in politics and other types of power, which is a fundamental move forward to equal rights," said Teresa Surita, whose win in Boa Vista has made her the first Brazilian women to win a fourth term as mayor.

But she emphasised that there was still a long way to go. Although women make up 52% of the electorate in Brazil, they account for only 12% of mayors (less than half the proportion in the UK and 5 percentage points lower than the US). "The disproportion of legislative power between the genders is still huge," says Surita.

Only one female mayoral candidate – Vanessa Grazziotin in Manaus – will run-off in the second-round of voting. The proportion of new women councillors elected this year rose only fractionally to 13.3% from 12.5% in 2008.

In a recent UN study, Brazil ranked 116th out of 143 countries in terms of the number of women in the national legislature.

It has been hoped that the gap would close more dramatically, partly as a result of affirmative action and largely because of the positive examples set by successful women politicians such as Rousseff, who enjoys approval ratings of more than 60%, and Marina Silva, the environmental campaigner.

In 1995, Brazil imposed quotas on political parties, requiring that 20% of candidates should be women. That has since been raised to 30%. Next year, the ruling Workers party has pledged to allot 50% of council positions to women to help balance political entry-level positions.

However, the largely voluntary quotas have been less effective than more stringent targets set in other Latin American nations.

In Argentina – the first country in the world to introduce quotas – 40% of national legislators are women. The president is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In Bolivia, which introduced quotas 15 years ago, the proportion is even higher at 47%.

Change in Brazil has come more slowly, but commentators believe it is still profound.

Oswaldo Munteal, a history lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro said the 2010 victory of Dilma was a turning point.

"Women have been less corrupt in politics. What is happening now is a consequence of that fact," he said. "I think we're living a very important political moment for women."

In many other areas of Brazilian society, women still lag behind men in terms of promotions and income, but the disparities appear to be shrinking. In 2007, women earned 67% of male salaries for comparable jobs. In 2011, the difference was 70.4%. Unemployment among women has fallen from 11% to 9.1%. For men there has been a similar fall, from 6.2% to 4.9%.